A long time back, possibly during the recording of Putting the Days to Bed (or maybe even the Ultimatum EP), I was in a conversation with one of the "Long Horns" players about new Long Winters songs. He told me the titles of a few that he and his fellow horn players were playing on, one of which was called Sugar From Sand. When PtDtB came out, I noticed that it was not included, and I assumed that it had been cut. However, I seem to remember something on a banner on either the main Long Winters page, or the board that I believe said "Can you tell sugar from sand?" Does anyone remember that, or am I crazy? Flash-forward to today, when I listened to an episode of John and Merlin's Roderick On the Line podcast (Ep. 45: The Conditions of Love). At one point in the podcast (at the 33:26 mark), there was a brief clip of music, in which I swear I hear John singing "Can you tell sugar from sand?" I am now convinced that this song exists in some form or another, and being the completest that I am, I would like to hear it. Does anyone out there have a clip of the song that you could share, or know anything else about it? Thanks!

I believe Merlin talked about this song somewhere (maybe his blog?) He said it was an unreleased song that John let him hear. (He also mentioned there were other unreleased songs that he loved.) I've only heard the little snippets on the podcast.

The song exists! I got to hear it on the River Otter tour with Eric and Michael Schorr in May 2004, when Michael let me hear it on his iPod. Seriously loved it. That's the only time I've heard it though, it's not really floating around as far as I know. I once was offered an mp3 of it, and I took the moral road of 'only if John's okay with it'. Stupid, stupid me.

I think there's more unreleased stuff from that period, but I have no idea how much or what.

Sorry to be so late in responding, I didn't realise the board had sprung back to life.